Start up issues

by **bobasan** on Fri Jul 16, 2004 2:57 am

Another newb here. I am having a lot of fun skinning and configuring xlobby to run my htpc but I have a problem. As soon as I load my full music and movie achive into their respective databases, xlobby refuses to boot past the "Loading: Databases" point. I have about 123GB of uncompressed music and about 1.2TB of movies. Any suggestions would be great.

Bob

by **Colby** on Fri Jul 16, 2004 3:38 am

Welcome aboard.
How are you loading in this media? What are the files extensions for movies and music?
My guess is that you have a "querky" filename in one of your db. Xlobby doesnt like weird characters sometimes. I would start by removing the music db xlm first. (and put it in a safe location.) then load xl if it loads than its not your movies db. If it doesnt load, remove the movie db and replace your music and repeat. If it still doesnt load than I can try something new.

by **bobasan** on Fri Jul 16, 2004 5:56 pm

I did remove the music db and it will boot. I just need to know what kind of naming/filing covenants I need to follow so that it works well with xlobby. Other than this one niggly little item, everything else is extremely easy to work up/manipulate.

by **Twit** on Sat Jul 17, 2004 5:15 am

If my xml files will not load the first thing i try is to open them with 'internet explorer'. It is fussy over its xml and will point out any lines it is unhappy with.

by **northern_munki** on Sun Feb 20, 2005 9:53 am

I'm a newby too. Having fun customising and just built a Via M6000 into a Silverstone LC02 case. V nice! About 15Gb of music only.

My system doesn't load beyond database either. Deleting the file does allow the system to boot. I added the files through the F2 menu.

Any help appreciated.

Cheers

by **dazzlevw** on Thu Mar 03, 2005 9:44 am

I'm having the same problem.........it just hangs at loading databases. If I remove the music.xml it will load normally, music.xml is 984kb whilst the movies.xml is only 4kb (I haven't added many yet) and it will load up with the movies.xml in place.

I imported the db through the f2 screen and my music folder is set up according to the structure in badabings guide (music/Artist/album/tracks)

Please help!!!

Colby
What would you define as a "quirky" character?

by **BaddaBing** on Thu Mar 03, 2005 2:39 pm

Its definitely not the size of your databases that is causing the problem, my music and movie DBs are larger and XL loads them with no problem. As for quirky characters I think the term that should be used is 'illegal characters'. Look for (') apostrophes, (#) pound and (&) single ampersands in your databases as they are illegal characters/values in XML field names and will cause the problems you are experiencing.

I.E.

This is bad a bad XML title -> Joe's_#4 concerto_for_banjo&flute

This would work -> Joes_number_4_concerto_for_banjo_and_flute

The easiest way to do this would be to open your music.xml database in notepad and just do a search one for each of the characters (', #, &) and if you find an entry with the offending characters - go to that mp3 file and edit the title to remove any illegal characters - then either re-import or edit the XML DB to match the new name.

I should probably add this info to my guide as XML data schemas aren't exactly second nature to most people. :wink:

For those of you looking for more detailed programming info on legal/illegal XML characters refer to this:
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml
and look at at section 2.2.

by **dazzlevw** on Thu Mar 03, 2005 3:02 pm

Cheers baddabing, I will trawl through every file and see what I can find!!!.......I'll be back next week sometime!!!

Cheers for the advice, and the guide, very helpful

by **dazzlevw** on Thu Mar 03, 2005 4:12 pm

Just a thought, and shoot me if i'm wrong........if I just replace the offending characters in the xml file, won't that break the link to the file?

ie, the xml would reference "dazzles song.mp3" but the actual file would still be called "dazzle's song.mp3"?

I don't know xml but the thought popped into my head....any advice gladly recieved

Cheers

by **BaddaBing** on Thu Mar 03, 2005 4:38 pm

dazzle,
yes, your are right - I've corrected my instructions - if you find an entry with the offending characters - go to that mp3 file and edit the title to remove any illegal characters - then either re-import or edit the XML DB to match the new name.
Thanks for the heads up-

-baddabing

by **dazzlevw** on Thu Mar 03, 2005 4:46 pm

Cheers chap, nice to know that I have the odd bright idea now and then... :lol:

I'm trawling through it now, about a quarter of the way through.....

Seems to mainly be my old blues stuff and apostrophies, the old bluesers like a bit of walkin' talkin' lovin' sleepin' ramblin' jumpin' jivin' livin' anything else with an apostrope in'.....

cheers again..

by **BaddaBing** on Thu Mar 03, 2005 5:50 pm

Ah yes...I can relate to that..my library includes Elmore James, BB King, Koko Taylor, Gatemouth Brown, Albert King, Blind Lemon, Sonny Boy Williamson, John Hooker, Muddy Waters, T-Bone Walker, Bobby Blue Bland, Albert Collins, Buddy Guy, Keb Mo, Junior Wells and Robert Johnson just to name a few. As you can tell my tastes lean toward to blues guitar.

by **dazzlevw** on Thu Mar 03, 2005 7:11 pm

some fine choices there, I lean towards anything guitar really...right from those you mention through clapton, hendrix, SRV, particularly Sonny Landreth and right into "Nu Metal" territory. Love em all but when you want to relax with your guitar,you just can't beat hammering out some blues.....every time....

Anyway, to the plot......finally sussed it out,took a fair while and there were some random # and ' tucked away in the metadata....found them all though and its up and running

Cheers badda, you've been a great help, take it easy buddy

Daz

by **dazzlevw** on Tue Mar 08, 2005 6:03 pm

SO.....continuing on this theme, is there a ripping or tagging utility which creates xml compliant id3 tags?...i'm sure this is just a stab in the dark but hey, if you don't ask.....

My ripper uses the cddb database to generate tag information so i suppose the answer would be a tag editing utility which checks tags for xml compliancy.....Obviously i could just check them all manually.....just wondering if there is an easier way..

Cheers

Daz

by **Arty** on Tue Jun 07, 2005 4:47 pm

I am also getting this database error, and if its the illegal Characters, will the database only hang on the filename illegal characters, or will it also hang on the ID3 tags also if they have those characters too? if anyone knows it would save me alot of time, dont feel like going through them twice, or i should say three times, already went through them making sure they are the same as the Online DB...

thanks

Arty